Music: Salonen conducts new music and Strauss at NYPO
Esa-Pekka Salonen is both one of the world's best conductors, and perhaps the best classical composer working. He is in residence in New York this year, conducting and composing. The NY Philharmonic concert Thursday night featured his conducting two "new" works, and a fine performance of Richard Strauss' tone poem Also Sprach Zarathusra. The concert was unified by the composers' use of orchestral writing to depict natural or supernatural phenomena.
The first "new" work was by Stravinsky. His Funeral Song, Op. 5 (1908) was forgotten soon after its premiere and was reconstructed from lost materials in the last decade. It had its second performance in 2016! It was composed in memory of the recently dead Rimsky-Korsakov. The 26 year old Stravinsky shows signs of his impending The Firebird, with creepy orchestral string rumblings a bit strange for a funeral elegy, more sci fi than ceremonial. Forest: a concerto for four horns is a new piece by British Tansy Davies (b. 1973), co-commissioned by the Philharmonic, and receiving its US debut this week. The program notes, and her pre-performance live introduction referred to antique hunting horns reverberating through a dark forest, global warming (note the continuing trend of art needing to have a political message), and "the power that might be found (or refound) through developing communication between us and nature". All this would be quite nice if I had heard more of it in the actual music. The four virtuosic horn players (all from the Philharmonia Orchestra, London) played many arpeggiated clusters of rapid sounds, perhaps trying to evoke the echoing overlaps and fragments of sound you might experience if you heard them in the distance, but it worked less well having them placed downstage, right on top of us. Their sound was too immediate, as if the horns were in our living room, not in some distant murky woods. While the orchestral accompaniment had some nice creepy string textures (similar to the Stravinsky), I am not sure why the snare drum was featured...not exactly a sound you hear in the forest. The piece had no clear structure or progression, abruptly ending; this can work, but an "atmosphere" piece (see my thoughts on Saariajo, e.g.) needs to create real atmosphere. Nice try.
Also Sprach Zarathusra (1896), inspired by the long, turgid treatise by Nietzsche (later used by Hitler to justify Aryan supremacy), is famous for its orchestral special effects. Kubrick was prescient in using it for the famous opening of 2001 A Space Odyssey. This is sometimes milked too much by conductors, who slow tempi and manipulate the music for all of its worth, diminishing its coherence as a single piece. Conductor Salonen, typically, kept things moving and thought through each transition, making part 1 cohere well without underplaying the drama (the magnificent string writing in "Of Joys and Passions" was spectacular). The piece takes Man through his attempts to find meaning in enigmatic world, via love, faith, science, each without success; so all that remains is to dance and laugh. The second part, dominated by the concertmaster playing an angular waltz with accompaniment derived from the famed opening, gradually fades off into tonal ambiguity. I have never found the second part of this tone poem as interesting as the first, and does not really convey the ethereal joyful bliss that the author described. Salonen's clarity and focus helped, and the piece seemed very much a 20th century "modern" work, not a romantic holdover. But he still did not convince me that part 2 is great music. This tone poem remains, for me 60% outstanding and 40% so-so, but in a fine performance like this one (unfortunately marred by flubbed trumpet ensemble on the very first unison note of the famed opening) it is a grand experience to sit in row two and be overwhelmed by the Strauss soundstage.
New York notes: The subway station outside of Lincoln Center is notable for either a saxophonist or a flutist playing excerpts of that night's concerts for waiting commuters after each concert. This is pretty easy when the concert was Mozart, but I was very impressed by the sax player's condensation of Also Sprach Zarathusa, one of the more virtuosic orchestral pieces around. Bravo! The subway ride was interesting too, as one of the concert patrons, perhaps inspired by the Strauss, brought out her copy of the Nietzsche to read (in German) on the way home. Now that is light subway reading to be sure!
The first "new" work was by Stravinsky. His Funeral Song, Op. 5 (1908) was forgotten soon after its premiere and was reconstructed from lost materials in the last decade. It had its second performance in 2016! It was composed in memory of the recently dead Rimsky-Korsakov. The 26 year old Stravinsky shows signs of his impending The Firebird, with creepy orchestral string rumblings a bit strange for a funeral elegy, more sci fi than ceremonial. Forest: a concerto for four horns is a new piece by British Tansy Davies (b. 1973), co-commissioned by the Philharmonic, and receiving its US debut this week. The program notes, and her pre-performance live introduction referred to antique hunting horns reverberating through a dark forest, global warming (note the continuing trend of art needing to have a political message), and "the power that might be found (or refound) through developing communication between us and nature". All this would be quite nice if I had heard more of it in the actual music. The four virtuosic horn players (all from the Philharmonia Orchestra, London) played many arpeggiated clusters of rapid sounds, perhaps trying to evoke the echoing overlaps and fragments of sound you might experience if you heard them in the distance, but it worked less well having them placed downstage, right on top of us. Their sound was too immediate, as if the horns were in our living room, not in some distant murky woods. While the orchestral accompaniment had some nice creepy string textures (similar to the Stravinsky), I am not sure why the snare drum was featured...not exactly a sound you hear in the forest. The piece had no clear structure or progression, abruptly ending; this can work, but an "atmosphere" piece (see my thoughts on Saariajo, e.g.) needs to create real atmosphere. Nice try.
Also Sprach Zarathusra (1896), inspired by the long, turgid treatise by Nietzsche (later used by Hitler to justify Aryan supremacy), is famous for its orchestral special effects. Kubrick was prescient in using it for the famous opening of 2001 A Space Odyssey. This is sometimes milked too much by conductors, who slow tempi and manipulate the music for all of its worth, diminishing its coherence as a single piece. Conductor Salonen, typically, kept things moving and thought through each transition, making part 1 cohere well without underplaying the drama (the magnificent string writing in "Of Joys and Passions" was spectacular). The piece takes Man through his attempts to find meaning in enigmatic world, via love, faith, science, each without success; so all that remains is to dance and laugh. The second part, dominated by the concertmaster playing an angular waltz with accompaniment derived from the famed opening, gradually fades off into tonal ambiguity. I have never found the second part of this tone poem as interesting as the first, and does not really convey the ethereal joyful bliss that the author described. Salonen's clarity and focus helped, and the piece seemed very much a 20th century "modern" work, not a romantic holdover. But he still did not convince me that part 2 is great music. This tone poem remains, for me 60% outstanding and 40% so-so, but in a fine performance like this one (unfortunately marred by flubbed trumpet ensemble on the very first unison note of the famed opening) it is a grand experience to sit in row two and be overwhelmed by the Strauss soundstage.
New York notes: The subway station outside of Lincoln Center is notable for either a saxophonist or a flutist playing excerpts of that night's concerts for waiting commuters after each concert. This is pretty easy when the concert was Mozart, but I was very impressed by the sax player's condensation of Also Sprach Zarathusa, one of the more virtuosic orchestral pieces around. Bravo! The subway ride was interesting too, as one of the concert patrons, perhaps inspired by the Strauss, brought out her copy of the Nietzsche to read (in German) on the way home. Now that is light subway reading to be sure!
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